I remembered feeling stupid standing on his back porch with a plate of cookies for a man whose life had just gone down in the flames of a nasty divorce. He hadn’t said anything when he answered the door—so I’d assumed that he’d thought it stupid, too. I’d gone back home as fast as I could without running.

I had had no idea that it had helped. Nor that he saw me as tough and capable. Funny, I’d always thought I looked weak to the werewolves.

So what if I still flinched if he forgot and put a hand on my shoulder? Time would fix that. I was already a lot better: daily flashbacks to the rape were a thing of the past. We’d work through it. Adam was willing to make allowances for me.

And our bond did its rubber-band thing, which it did sometimes, and snapped back into place, giving him access to my thoughts as if my head were clear as glass.

“Whatever you need,” he said, his body suddenly still as the evening air. “Whatever I can do.”

I relaxed my shoulders, burying my nose against his collarbone, and after a second, the relaxation was genuine. “I love you,” I told him. “And we need to talk about me paying you for that truck.”

“I’m not—”

I cut off his words. I meant to put a finger against his lips or something tender like that. But I’d jerked my head up in reaction to his apology and slammed my forehead into his chin. Shutting him up much more effectively than I’d meant to as he bit his tongue.

He laughed as he bled down his shirt, and I babbled apologies. He let his head fall back against the truck door with a thump.

“Leave off, Mercy. It’ll close up quick enough on its own.”

I backed up until I was sitting beside him—half-laughing myself, because although it probably hurt quite a bit, he was right that his injury would heal in a few minutes. It was minor, and he was a werewolf.

“You’ll quit trying to pay for the SUV,” he told me.

“The SUV was my fault,” I informed him.

“You didn’t throw a wall on it,” he said. “I might have let you pay for the dent—”

“Don’t even try to lie to me,” I huffed indignantly, and he laughed again.

“Fine. I wouldn’t have. But it’s a moot point anyway, because after the wall fell on it, fixing the dent was out of the question. And the ice elf’s lack of control was completely the vampire’s fault—”

I could have kept arguing with him—I usually like arguing with Adam. But there were things I liked better.

I leaned forward and kissed him.

He tasted of blood and Adam—and he didn’t seem to have any trouble following the switch from mild bickering to passion. After a while—I don’t know how long—Adam looked down at his bloodstained shirt and started laughing again. “I suppose we might as well go bowling after all,” he said, pulling me to my feet.